Guerrilla History - The History and Impact of Sanctions on Iran w/ Muhammad Sahimi

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

This episode of Guerrilla History is a continuation of our Sanctions As War miniseries.  In this fascinating episode, we have a discussion with Professor Muhammad Sahimi on the history and the impacts of sanctions on Iran, which is both an immensely enlightening and heartbreaking conversation.  This episode is particularly timely given the current situation in Iran, which the last question of the interview addresses.  Be sure to also stay turned for more installments of our Sanctions As War series! Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor at the University of Southern California, where he analyses Iran’s political development, its nuclear program, and its foreign policy. From 2008 to 2012 he was the lead political analyst at E0*/Frontline/Tehran Bureau website. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a (free!) newsletter you can sign up for, a great resource for political education!

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the

lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined unfortunately only by one of my co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing very well, and it's a great pleasure to be with you, as always, Henry. Absolutely. Always a pleasure to see you as well. We're unfortunately not joined by our other usual co-host, Brett O'Shea, who had a very positive development in his life recently. And so we're giving him a little bit of time off. I won't get more specific than that because, you know, personal things.

But just as everybody will probably know, we're very, very happy for Brett and you should be as well. So today we have an excellent guest and we're going to be recording on a really excellent topic. We're joined by Professor Mohamed Sahimi, a professor at University of Southern California. who analyzes Iran's political development, its nuclear program, and its foreign policy, and has been writing on these topics for about 30 years. This episode is going to be a continuation of our ongoing sanctions as war series, which, if you haven't listened to the previous installments of our sanctions as war series, including the introductory episode with Professor Emmanuel Ness and Stuart Davis, as well as the case

study on Yugoslavia that we put out and the episode on sanctions as siege warfare, which came out just one or two weeks ago at the time that this episode comes out, you should really go check out those episodes too, because these episodes really do work well together as a cohesive whole that we can understand theoretically as well as these case studies. So Professor Sahimi wrote the chapter of this book, Sanctions is War titled A Century of Economic Blackmail Sanctions and War Against Iran. And of course, it's timely that we're talking about Iran right now, but it also is basically always timely to be talking about Iran in the context of sanctions. So, Professor, I'm going to just turn this over to you right now.

Would you mind giving a brief sketch? I know in the beginning of the chapter, basically the first half of the chapter, you give a brief history of how relations between, let's just say, the West and Iran unfolded and kind of set up the future sanctions regimes that were then placed on Iran. Could you briefly sketch out that historical relation between Iran and the West? Sure. During the first part of the 20th century, the rivalry between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, over influence in Iran, contributed to Iran being basically a bargaining cheek or one billion two between the two.

Both wanted to have influence in Iran. the British Empire was worried about its colonies in Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and so on. At the same time, they were worried about the Russians on the north. The Russians, on the other hand, have always wanted to have access to warm water. And the closest access to Russia at that time was through Iran to reach the Persian Gulf. And therefore, there was always tension between the British Empire and Russian Empire were influenced in Iran. When constitutional revolution in Iran occurred in 2006 and the absolute monarchy was transformed

into a constitutional monarchy, the British supported the revolutionaries, whereas the Russians supported the supporters of the old regime, the absolute monarchy. And therefore, when in 1907, Mohamed Ali Shah, who was the king of Iran at that time, sided with counter-revolutions and wanted to take the system back to all the base. The Russians supported it with the help of the Russian Cossack and Brigade that was operating in Iran, and all of its commanders were also Russians. So what they did was they bombard the Iranian parliament at that time. And for a brief period of time, the old absolute monarchy came back. At the same time, Germany was underlies. And the British and Russians were also worried about the rise of Germany,

which eventually led to World War I. So in their negotiations in 1907, they decided basically to recognize each other's influence in Iran. Russia, a sphere of influence was recognized as being part of Iran, whereas the British sphere of influence was supposed to be southern part of Vietnam on the shores of Perengal and Sea of Oma. So that was basically what happened, transforming the rivalry into some sort of cooperation in order to control Iran and so that they can stand up to the rising Germans at that time. Then when World War I forelocked, they wanted to help Russia. Therefore, the British Empire wanted to use Iran. Russian forces occupied more than part of Iran.

The British entered Iran to the Southern Park. And because of the fact that they had been using all means of transportation and roads at that time, and because of the fact that they were buying large amount of food stuff, among other factors that contributed to a big famine in Iran, in that era and anywhere between 2 million to 9 million Iranians lost their lives because of the famine. And Iran's population at that time was something like 20 to 25 million. So that basically contributed greatly to that famine and a very large number of Iranians that lost their lives.

Just to jump in for one second, I want to just to drive that point home, for the listeners. What the professor just said is that this famine that was taking place killed anywhere between 10 and 45% of the population of Iran within this period of time. It's worth dwelling on those numbers for just a little bit because you hear, you know, 2 million people to 8 million people. It really does put it into perspective to think of it as a percentage of the population. We're talking 10 to 45% of the entire country's population dying within this couple year period. I apologize for the interruption of the professor. No, the old point is excellent, actually.

Yes, when we look at this in terms of percentage, then we can compare, for example, let's say that you have a famine in the United States that gives 10% of the population. That's equivalent to 33 million people losing their lives here because of farming. So that puts it in perspective. So at the same time, you have to remember

that in 1901, William Knox-Darcy had obtained an oil concession from the Shah of Iran-Muzafarian Shah that gave it the right to explore for oil everywhere in Iran except the northern part of it. And that concession was supposed to last for 60 years from 2001 to 1961. And after many years of exploration, oil finally started to flow in 1908 in the town, Masjid Soleim, in the southern part of Iran. And that added to Iran's strategic importance, because not only now Iran was the bridge between Asia and Europe and also on the southern border of Russia and Persian Gulf and Sea of Omaha, but it also emerged that Iran has very significant oil.

And therefore, that further added to Iran's strategic importance. Then towards the end of World War I, we had the Russian Revolution, the October Revolution of 1917, where Cummins government came to power. And that changed the beginning for British Empire because they, they, they, they, They were now worried about, you know, the leftists or communist influence in Iran. And Iran was in total chaos because of World War I. We have to remember that at the beginning of World War I, Iran had to clear its neutrality. But that neutrality wasn't respected. And as I said, Russians and British forces entered Iran and contributed to the great family that we had at that time.

So the British decided that in order to have a secure Iran, they have to bring their own man into power. So in 1921, they staged a coup and they brought to power an Iranian brigadier general who was known as Reza Khan Sadat Kupi. He was part of the Cossack Brigade, and to the coup in February of 1921, he and another Iranian, who is reputed to be a British agent. His name was Setsia Tawa-Tawai. They staged a coup over to remove from power the prime minister at that time and took over the government. After three months, Sezia Tawotawili, who was supposedly the leader of the coup, was removed and they resolved on the Brigadier General. First became Minister of Defense and then eventually became Prime Minister. And then in 1926, he forced the parliament, Iranian parliament, to abolish the last.

monarchy dynasty, the Ajar dynasty, and declared himself the new Shah Abhiun. And that began a dark period, 1925, a dark period between 2025 to 1941, where although Reza Khan, who was now known as Reza Shah, put some order into Iran and unified the country and modernize the government and so on. But in terms of political developments and Iran's progress towards a democratic government, everything went completely dark. Resa Khan treat many of his opponents, through many of them in jail, forced many of them into exile, and forced many of other ones into complete silence.

He was an absolute dictator. So because of British Empire man in Iran, all the achievements of the constitutional revolution that we had in 1906 were basically destroyed. But at the same time, Iranists were not happy about the oil concessions that William Knox Darcy had the pain from Iran because now Iran was producing a very significant amount of oil, but Iran was receiving very little. from, you know, extraction and sell oil. Iran was only receiving something like 16% of the profit. But even then, the way they were counting as profit was completely strange because they had formed the Anglo-Persian oil company. And the Anglo-Persian company, which is basically what is now as British Petroleum,

had operation all over the war. So although it had operation all over the war, they were not counting profits outside Iran as profits. At the same time, since they were selling Iran its own oil at a discount, they were also counting that discount as some sort of operating expenses. So that made it cut into further into what Iran was in city. So negotiations began again in 1933, and there was a lot of dissidents in Iran regarding the concession.

But what happened was after intense negotiation and after result, he went saying that the concession to William Knox Darcy was canceled, there finally some sort of agreement whereby Iran would receive a better deal for its story. But the duration of the constitution was extended from 1961 to 1991. So it was extended for another 30 years. So that added to the anger that Iranian people, and particularly the intelligentsia and the Iranian political activists had. And then when Razor Shah started developing sympathies towards the Nazi Germany that have come to power. in Germany. And in fact, for example, the Nazis helped

resolve to build railroad from southern Iran to northern Iran. The British got bored. That railroad that Germans built for Iran was actually something that benefited the British Empire, not Iranian people. Because for Iran, the most strategic road is not from south to north or north to south, but because it is breached between Asia and Europe, the most strategic roads should be between eastern part of the country and western part of the country, whereby it connects Asia to Europe. But that railroad was built because the British were worried about Russian communists

And at that time, Christian Sonas monitored the American newspaper when the British invaded Iran in 1941 had a report saying that Iran's railroad goes from nowhere to nowhere. In other words, it wasn't passing through any city, any economically significant area, and it was just built for the benefits of the British Empire.

So after Rezaa Shah developed sympathy for Germany, in particular, Ed of Hitler, and the allies were, of course, worried about Iran. So they invaded Iran in September of 1941, remove Rezaa Shah from power and put his son, Muhammad Rezaa Shah, in power. That started a period of relative political freedom in Iran between 1941 and 1953 because the young Shah was weak. Iran had been under great repression by Rezaa Shah and after he was removed, there was a lot of relief that Iranian people felt as a result of being removed from power.

And we had a period of relative democratic values and freedom of expressions in Iran. But that freedom also led to the fact that Iranian nationals again began raising the voice regarding Iran's national resources and in particular own. Iranians wanted to basically take control of their own resources, and in particular old, and the British Empire was not willing to give it up. A lot of people say here in the West that the British Empire offered Iran great concessions, and if Iran had accepted, we would never have had the 1953 coup by the CIA. and British M16, but the fact of the matter is, as Professor Abraham Ion demonstrated in his excellent book, the coup, the issue was not how much Iran was getting, although that was important. The issue was Iran's control on its all national resources. The British were not willing to give it up. Iranians wanted to take it back.

And therefore, after a lot of confrontation between the nationalists and the imperial court, the Shah, who was always afraid of the British court and the British government, Dr. Muhammad Moussavid, the Nationalist Iranian Prime Minister, who had been elected democratically and his allies nationalized Iranian oil. Iranian oil industry in 1936. That began the process for, for staging a coup and overturned the government of Dr. Muhammad of Saffir. First, they imposed a lot of sanctions in Iran. They prevented Iran from exporting oil.

They prevented Iran from getting loans from outside. They threatened Iran militarily. by sending their British forces to the Persian Gulf. And even after one won the case in front of international tribal and then to United Nations, the British didn't budge. And that was when Harry Truman, he was president, who had sympathy towards Dr. Moschapir, was he placed by President Dwight Eisenhower.

And President Eisenhower was, of course, a very conservative guy, and his administration was far right. And in particular, the brothers, the Dallas brothers. One of them was the director of CIA. The other one was Secretary of State. They were strongly anti-Iran anti-Dr. Moussabir and his government. And they were claiming that Dr. Mossade is weak. And if this continues, the Soviets would take over Iran to Iranian Communist Party, which was known as the Tudai Party, two-day parties, and therefore they need to overthrow.

So as I said, that began the process of planning for it. And eventually, in August of 1953, after the Shah of Iran had fled the country, left the country. and Dr. Mossadeh and his allies had complete control over you know there's a strategic coup and with the help of elements of your own military and some of their agents being and some of the clerics who were not happy with dr. moussatir and they overthrew him jailed a lot of Iranian nationalists and re-establish the power of the Shah. The Shah returned to Iran, and that started his dictatorship from 1953 all the way to fall of

of 1978 and winter of 1979. But even during this time, the role of Americans and British states in Iran were very significant, even though their allies in power. For example, in 1957, the Americans held the Shah to establish its internal security organization, which was named Sabak, which is a farce the acronym for the organization for security and intelligence of Iran. The Starvok became basically an organization that would be able to. capture, increase, and torture Iranian opposition leaders, and hundreds of them were killed by and saw during 1960s and 1970s.

In 1961, for example, President John Kennedy was worried about the fact that Iran may have some sort of rule or movement of the type that we had seen in Latin America. He was worried that there would be forces, like for example, what Peter Castro had in Cuba. And he thought that Iran should take agriculture reform and redistribute some lands between peasants so that that would prevent things that had happened in Latin America and Iran. But the Shah was not willing to do that. So he pressured him and he basically imposed on him his own peak for Iran's prime minister, which name was Ali Aminini. Ali Amini was an American-educated poor American politician.

He was also related to the last dynasty, the Hajjar dynasty, that the Meshaw and his father had ordered. So they took some sort of aggravated form in order to prevent something like, you know, what had happened in Latin America, for example. But that also back for you because when you receive. With land between peasants, you also need to give them other things in order to not only survive, but try. You need water resources. You need good income and so on.

And the lands that they gave them are small pieces of land that was not really useful for, you know, a sustained production of agriculture and products and also a sustained way of life. So what happened was a lot of those peasants that were supposed owners of the land couldn't really leave with what they had. So they started migrating towards large cities. And in these large cities, they basically stayed around on the periphery of these cities. And they couldn't get the job. And that added to complications that Iran had in addition to political repression, lack of weed on everything else, the Shah's economy was not able to address the poverty that was spreading.

So eventually that led to the linear revolution that we can discuss it separate. Yeah, this is a very important review of kind of modern history of Iran, which you do in your article, which is a little bit different, interestingly, from some of the other approaches that authors studying the sanctions regimes have taken by giving us this more detailed background, longer period of history, you know, one of the things that I see valuable in it is that although many times people, you know, understand that Iran was not colonized in the same fashion, for example, say Algeria, or there wasn't direct control under the mandate, like for,

you know, Iraq and Syria in the interwar period, that nonetheless there has been a very long and sustained pattern of intervention by outside imperial powers that have tried to control and suppress Iran's economic and political sovereignty. So this review is very important in detailing those patterns. I guess what I would say, what I would ask you to perhaps analytically reflect on that very interesting account of all of these interventions and various ways of suppressing Iran's sovereignty is to ask how you see that connected analytically to the sanctions regime. People might think that, oh, sanctions are a separate process that, you know, appear in response to the 1978 and 79 revolutionary period.

But your perspective puts it in continuity with this longer history. I'm wondering if you could tell us how you see that being connected with telling the story and understanding the actual role or impact of sanctions. Why do we need that history? Well, I mean, we do need it because unlike what some people think, sanctions imposed on Iran didn't start after the Iranian revolution. It goes way back. As I said, even the time that Dr. Moussavir, a nationalist Iranian oil company,

Anglo-Persian oil company, named a national Iranian oil company. the British Empire, in order to prevent it and force Iran to give it up, impose economic sanctions. And in this, it was aided by the United States. They prevented enough from setting their oils. They're basically surrounded Iran on the south by military force. They prevented Iran from getting loans because Dr. Mossadegh was trying to get loans so that he can run the country until the issue is involved. Even before that, during the negotiations between Resort Shah and Anglo-Persian oil company,

there was always a threat that, you know, your share would be cut off, your share would be held back until you agree to the conditions that we want. So this has a long history in Iran. And even, for example, in the beginning 1960s, as I said, President John Kennedy was worried about what may happen in Iran because of the situation in rural area and forced the shop to pick his own plea, Ali Amin, as prime minister. And in this, he basically threatened the shop that unless you do this, there will be some consequences.

So that was also, you know, economic blacking that they were at least threatening to impose anyone. So it, and since from, at least from the point of view of Americans, these scientists have always been effective, whereas they haven't been affected people, the only thing they have done is herding the lives of ordinary Iranians without actually results. in what they actually wanted. So there has always been a continuity of either sanctions or the threat of sanctions against Iran, at least since 1940s and 1950s. So when the Islamic Revolution or the Iranian Revolution, the Pope of the Shah, in February of 1979, and then we had the hostage crisis, Then President Carter imposed economic sanctions in the U.S. reverted to its own tricks, imposing economic sanctions in law.

After Iran and the United States breached the Algiers by which Iran released the hostages and the United States agreed to end its economic sanction, the agreement stipulated that the United States is not imposed sanctions on Iran again and it would also not intervene in Iran's internal affairs but almost immediately after the end of the crisis crisis everything started again so this has always continued then we got to be we got to Iran-Iraq war there were sanctions against Iran buying weapons to defend itself, even though the Shah between 1973 and 1978 had purchased a $19 billion worth of modern weapon from the United States, the U.S. refused to provide Iran

with their spare parts for the weapons that Iran had purchased and had paid. And in fact, part of the weapons that never delivered. not only they were not delivered, the United States encouraged Iran to invade Iran. And Iraq would not have invaded Iran if it had not been for encouragement that was received from the United States. So when it invaded the Iraq in September of 1980, Iraq had full support of the West, even though the United States declared its neutrality, but it wasn't actually neutral because it was giving all sorts of intelligence to Iraqi forces to become aware of a movement of Iranian troops. And as we all know, Donald Ronssel went to Iraq as a special envoy for President Ronald Reagan to let Saddam Hussein know that although U.S. was officially neutral, but it was tilting towards Iraq during the war. And so that began, and France sold a lot of weapons to Iraq, Greek and sold a lot of weapons to Iraq.

The Arab nations of the Persian Gulf that are allies of the United States provided Iraq with $50 billion in financial help in order to sustain the war with Iran. And in the meantime, Iran was basically deprived of any even defensive defense because there was a sanction. and there was a United States refused to deliver to what Iran had already paid for. Not only that, Western power, including Germany and the United States, help Iraq to develop chemical weapons. And those chemical weapons were used not only against Iranian troops, but also against Iraqis' own Kurdish citizens that killed thousands of people. And the CIA and Western power knew, but they never condemned it until

many years after after the event war with Saddam Hussein himself so as you can see there has always been this continuity of either sanctions of dump store or another against you know or threat of it you either do this that we tell you or there will be consequences the consequences have always been sanctions in the first place but there has that There are always been also wars, such as invasion of Iran by Iraq, encouraged by the U.S. To recall that towards the end of war in 1987 and 1988 and 1988 and 1988, basically the NATO, the entire NATO alliance took side with Iran because there was a tanker war between Iran and Iraq, whereby the Iraqis were attacking Iranian oil installation. And in return, Iranians were attacking the tankers that was selling oil for Iran in order to prevent it, deprived it from income. And therefore, NATO sent its naval forces to Persian Gulf.

And the United States attacked Iranian oil installation in the Persian Gulf. It destroyed half of the Iranian Navy. And then on top of it, in July 1988, they shot down Iranian passenger airline. that few of 290 people, including 63 children over the Persian Gulf. And their excuse was that it was a human mistake because they thought that this was a oil and fighter jets or a lot of passenger jet. Whereas we know that there's no way that any modern radar can confuse the two. So that, again, that continued.

And then President Clinton came to power. imposed total sanctions and so on and so forth and we can we can discuss them one by one case by case so as you said this this this has always continued and unlike what they claim in this this part of war sanction didn't start with iranian revolution sanction didn't start with hostage crisis sanction didn't start with iraqo it goes way back uh and has always been used as a weapon against Iranian people and the Iranian nation. I think that this is a good time to go through the sanctions one by one. But just in preface to that, you mentioned the Algiers Accords.

I think that this, of course, is also worth bringing up that the audience has this in their minds. The Alger's Accords were signed on January 19, 1981. one. And as you said, they essentially prohibited the United States from meddling in internal affairs in Iran and also prohibited them from imposing economic sanctions. And also they had to lift the existing economic sanctions on Iran that were in place at that point. And so basically every sanctions package and, you know, the overall sanctions regime that has been in place on Iran since then has been in direct contradiction to the Alger's Accords. Like, you know, this is what the United States does. The United States makes pact, makes accords, and then violates them

willy-nilly. We've seen this time and time again. And this, in the case of Iran, it goes farther back than the Alger's Accords, but we still see this, you know, countervening of the spirit and the letter of the law of the Elders Accords ever since 1981. So it's worth keeping that in mind, listeners, that all of these sanctions that the professor is now going to go through with us, these are all in direct contradiction to what the United States said it was going to do. So please keep that in your mind. Now, Professor, why don't you just take it away with all of these sanctions packages that were put in place on Iran since that period of time and the impacts of them?

Because as you lay out in your article, the chapter of this book, each of these sanctions has had an absolutely devastating impact on Iran and on totally ordinary people. The intended target in many ways, I will add, you know, the implicit target is regime change, but another implicit target is that that's via harming ordinary people, and that's something that we've talked about throughout the sanctions as worst series. So, Professor, go ahead. Well, first of all, we have to remember that President Reagan and his successor for President George W. Bush never actually lifted all the sanctions that

have been imposed by personal court. Some sanctions were removed, but some other sanctions stay, and the legal framework for it, at least legal, from view of the Americans, also stayed in place. So the sanctions were never completely removed. Then after the war, the Iraq ended, and there was a new Iranian president,

Akbar Hashidab, San Jani, who was one of the leaders of the revolution, was elected president, he wanted to actually improve the relations between Iran and the United States. He taught that to rebuild the country, Iran needs investment by the West, and Iran needs to at least lower tension with the United States.

So in 1995, Iran had, you know, called for bets to develop an offshore oil freeze in the Persian Gulf. Several Europeans and American companies participated. There was no oil sanction at that time. And even though a European fair won the wedding, the administration of President Raph San Johnny decided to award a contract to the American oil company in Conoco.

Conoco. Conoco was supposed to go in and develop the oilfield and share some profits and then handed over to Iran. But President Clinton, who wanted the support of the Israeli lobby to get reelected in 1996, not only prevented Conocoqo to carry out its project. in Iran, but impose total economic sanctions, which meant no trade between Iran and the United States, no investment in Iran's oil industry or other industry within Iran, and also sanctions and punishment for any third party, let's say, any European company that was willing to invest in So that began the quote-and-called modern era of sanctions against Islam. It was Bill Clinton who did this.

Then, in two years after that, Muhammad Otany, the reformist president, was elected in Landisloid. He began a series of reforms, and one of his key goals was, again, to improve the relations with the United States. He came to the United Nations and spoke about dialogue of civilization. He said that the people of the United States should begin exchanging culture, sports, things, and so on, and gradually improve their relationship. The net resolve was that Bill Clinton told him, he, Secretary of State, Madden Albright, didn't watch. The only thing they did was in spring of year 2000.

After the Iranian reforms had won by the landis of the elections for Iranian parliament, they, Albright made a speech in which she expressed regrets over the 1953 coups. She actually didn't apologize. She just expressed regret. and tried to justify it by saying that the Eisenhower administration was worried about a strategic implication of Iran's nationalism of oil and also the influence of leftist and communist Iran and so on. So that basically left all the sanctions in place. Then when George W. Bush became president or elected president and started his presidency in 2001.

We had, of course, September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The United States decided to invade Afghanistan, but in its invasion, Iran actually provided very significant help to the U.S. forces in order to overthrow the talent. Because Iran had been in Afghanistan, historically Afghanistan had always been part of Iran that had been separated by force by the British in 1865 and established the estate of Afghanistan basically at the buffer zone between Iran and Indian subcontinent. And of course, a significant proportion of Afghani people speak daring, which is basically pure Persian. So Iran had always had a deep influence in Afghanistan.

And after Taliban took over in 1996, Iranians helped the opposition to Taliban. So when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, Iran provided great help to its forces. It opens aerospace so that U.S. aircraft can fly over Iran-to-Jah Afghanistan instead of going the longer route of flying over the ocean. and go to Pakistan, it committed itself to help if any, for example, any U.S. aircraft had to land in emergency situation in Iran.

And most importantly, Iran had armed and trained the Northern Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was the leader of the opposition in Afghanistan. And it was a few days before the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, Amat Shah as soon had been assassinated. So after the terrorist attack and the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance forces that have been trained by Iran were actually the first force that intercoburned and overtrow the Taliban. It wasn't the U.S. forces that it was a northern alliance forces,

So there was hope at that time that the relations between Iran and the United States will improve. More than that, in December of 2001, there was a conference in Bonn, West Germany, for Germany at that time, including all Afghan factions. They have gotten together, plus neighbors of Afghanistan, including Iran and the United States that, you know, was there. and Russia and so on, to agree on some sort of national unity government for Afghans. And these factions were not able to reach any agreement until Iran actually intervened.

Iran's representative to that conference was Muhammad Jayawa Zaid, who later became Iran foreign minister and negotiated the JCPOA agreement, the nuclear agreement. And it was through the intervention of Zaire, that Afghan factions actually agreed on the form of the national community government. And in fact, U.S. representative to that negotiation, James Dobbins, later testified in U.S. Senate, praising and Zaid, saying that without Zaire himself and Yvon's self, this would have never happened. But what did the United States do? Less than two months later, George Bush spoke to the Congress and declared Iran a charter member of our

access of ELO. He put Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, you know, in the same level, and declared its access of ELO, and began its hostility towards you. He imposed further sanctions, and he rejected any sort of negotiations between Iran and Iran and the United States. Then when the U.S. invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, about two months later after that invasion, the Khatami administration submitted a comprehensive proposal in the Bush administration for resolving all the issues between Iran and the United States. This was very significant because Iran, for example, had offered in that proposal. that it would disarm the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah and would transform it into a purely political and social organization so that the U.S. concern would be at least. It also proposed that Iran would recognize any agreement between Palestinian and Israeli regarding the issue between Palestine and Israel. It will end its support for other Palestinian faction.

It would put Iran nuclear program, which was, you know, getting developed at that time under a strict control by international atomic energy agency. And it also added to other other concerns. Iran sent this proposal to Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Swiss Embassy in Tehran takes care of the U.S. interests in Iran, and Swiss ambassador to Iran forwarded to the White House. But Dick Cheney and Joe W. Bush rejected the proposal. And Dick Cheney is said to have said that we don't negotiate with terrorists. So that added to the tension. Then Iran started negotiating with two European powers, Germany, France, and Britain over Iran's nuclear program.

And in spring of 2005, they reached an agreement, what they should do and so on. But the George Dallery Bush administration rejected the argument. Jack Estra, who was foreign secretary of reason at that time, said later on that it was only because of the opposition by George Derry Bush that we didn't reach agreement to be wrong. And therefore, what happened was Iran began developing its nuclear program. And as a result of continuous pressure by the United States on Iran, at least one of the factors that continued it, was the rise of hardliners in Iran. because whatever the Iranians did, whatever the reformed administration of President of Hought and

deed, was countered by hostile action by the United States. The hardiners have always said that we cannot trust the United States. Just as we said, the United States signs a pact, signs an agreement, but violates that later on when it suits in interest to violate. So it cannot really be trusted. So Mahmoud Ahmadinejah came to power in 2004 and he began to develop Iran-Supret program. As a result, Iran's nuclear dossier was sent to United Nations Security Council and a new round of sanctions began. And the United States now used resolutions by U.S. Security Council as sort of a legal basis that, yes, since the U.S. Security Council,

has agreed on a separate sanctions against Iran. Therefore, we can also follow that resolution. We can also impose our own sanctions. Then we reached the Obama era when President Obama began his presidency in January of 2009. Supposedly, he came to power to make peace between the United States and the Islam. for. I remember that he gave his speech in Cairo and referred to

the confrontation between the West and the Islam and he said that he wants to seek peace and he was even awarded a little advisor. But what he did regarding him was not only renewing all those sanctions

against Iran that had been imposed by Big Clinton and George Gary Roche. He also did a new type of sanctions that was totally unprecedented. Even the Clinton era and George W. Bush era, the U.S. had sanctions imposed on Iran, but Iran was still free to have commercial relationship with the U.K. countries, Asian countries, and so on.

But what Obama did was it cut up Iran from a world financial institution, and in particular but the Swedish system that allows transfer of currency and money between major countries. So that meant that all Iranian banks were sanctions, all Iranian financial institutions were sanctions, and therefore anything that Iran would sell outside was not able to receive the proceeds from it, and there would be frozen in the countries where they had received Iranian products and oil. so on. So that was the most severe type of sanctions. And in fact, an analysis of those sanctions that Obama imposed on Iran shows that those sanctions were harsher than anything that the United States imposed on the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. So Iran has been under those

sanctions since Obama. These were really hard. harsh. Even, for example, the United States officially didn't sanction still of critical medication, drugs, and so on to Iran. But because Iran's financial institution were cut off from the rest of the world, there was no way to buy those drugs and import Iran and pay for it, because when you are cut off, how are going to pay for it? And in addition, the concern that these companies had was that if they sell Iran these medication drugs and so on, and they will be fined somehow later on they will come after them about why they sold these drugs to Europe. So as a result of those sanctions, I'm sure thousands of people lost their lives because some critical medicine,

Iran makes 90% of its own medicine, but 10% of critical medicine. important things like cancer and so on have to be imported and Iran was not able to import those. So a lot of people lost their lives because of lack of this medication. Yes, enjoy the question. Just to add in very briefly that as you mentioned, many individuals in Iran lost their lives due to a lack of these critical medications. My friend Kavan Sheffi's father died as a result, I believe, of a lack of a specific heart medication that he was reliant on and as a result of the sanctions that specific medication

was no longer allowed to be imported into Iran and as a result he ended up dying from it. For listeners that are interested, I did interview Kavon about the sanctions and his personal connection to them on the David Feldman show a long time ago, probably two and a half years ago at this point. I'll try to find the link for that and share it once this episode comes out. But yeah, I just wanted to mention that that episode does exist. And as you mentioned, there's a lot of individuals that lost their lives as a direct result of a lack of critical medicines being allowed into Iran. I mean, can you really imagine something more inhumane than having people suffer and die due to a lack of medication? I mean, it's really, really obscene.

Anyway, I just wanted to jump in with that quick. And let me mention that I actually had first-hand experience in this because two of My brother-in-laws are actually pharmacists. They live in Iran and they have pharmacy. And they told me that a lot of medications that people need cannot be found because they cannot be imported and people are losing their life. I had a first cousin. She had multiple escorts and she needed critical medication medicine so that they can at least control it. And she never received it and passed away because of lack of those medications.

education. So I personally have personal experience. So as I said, I would love to emphasize that the sanctions that Obama imposed on Iran, and then later on Donald's wrong, we imposed them in 2012 18, are the harshest sanctions that any country has imposed on any other country. They are harsher than even sanctions that the United States has imposed on Cuba, for example, or on the Soviet Union at the heart of the Cold War. So, because of all these sanctions, then, yes, you have a question? Well, I know, I'm just going to say one quick thing, Adnan, and then I'll let you follow up,

because I know that what I'm going to say is going to lead into what you're saying. So you mentioned multiple sclerosis professor. This is a disease that my mother suffers from as well. And Adnan, here comes a meatball for you. ready. So I'm just imagining that my mother, she's on this medication that slows down the progression of her illness. And I, for the listeners who don't know, I love my mother as much as anyone in the world. I mean, absolutely the dearest person to me. Now, if there was somebody that was preventing my mother from having a critical medication that I know would prolong

her life and dramatically, dramatically improve the quality of her life for, you know, the duration of it. If somebody was preventing that from happening, they were preventing them from getting that critical medication, I, if I say what I would do to the person that was preventing that, this show would be shut down in a moment. So I will not say it. But listeners, I am not joking when I say this. If I knew somebody, you know, or an institution.

or a state that was directly preventing, and I know my mom is going to hear this, this is also why I'm not saying what I would be doing, but if somebody was directly preventing my mother from having this critical medication that I know would both prolong her life and make her suffering significantly less, you do not want to know what I would do. There is no end to what I would do in order to seek, you know, whatever word you want to use, retribution, vengeance, whatever. So Adnan, I feel like that'll lead you into your question. Well, it's just, no, it's just so important to have this, not only the detailed analysis of, in the abstract of what has been imposed, but then to hear and understand these personal connections to the impacts that on real

people this whole sanction regime has had. But Professor Sahemi, when, you know, what, One thing that I've gathered also from your discussion in the article and just now about the new character of the Obama era of sanctions suggests to me that this is very much, especially the long history you've told us, that there has been a prolonged historical campaign of attempting to control Iran in various ways such that the difference between U.S. administrations is one of minor degrees. in terms of the consequences and impacts on Iran. So, of course, everybody has heard of, you know, Donald Trump tearing up the JCPOA and supposedly, you know, ushering in some new era of maximum pressure, which, of course, has had its devastating consequences. But in total, you're describing a bipartisan commitment to the suffocation of Iran economically and politically, such that it makes me wonder if you would analyze the whole, you know,

question of the Iran nuclear program as merely a mode of maintaining and expanding a sanctions regime rather than any kind of genuine concern about Iran's nuclear program that I think, you know, it's acknowledged in many documents that Iran has no weapons program of any kind. And so it seems that it's being used as a way to extend and expand and maintain a pre-existing sanctions regime and not ever have to face the situation of, you know, rationalizing it when, you know, there's been so many attempts to try and negotiate out of it. So I guess that's my question is, you know, is this just instrumental? And secondly, really connected to that is how is Iran coping?

You've talked about some of these devastating consequences. What has been the ways of resisting or adjusting to the sanctions and whether or not the changing geopolitical situation because of all these, you know, very strict third party. know, dimensions of it, that companies can't do business, even though they're not U.S. companies, the U.S. will sanction those companies and prevent them and scare them off from actually doing any business with Iran. But are there changes taking place in the contemporary environment with the emergence of, you know, Chinese firms or a kind of policy, you might say, geopolitically of countries like Iran as not the only one under sanctions, sort of cooperating together to try and evade this system globally of U.S. sanctions?

Absolutely. Let me first repeat what you actually said with which I told to the economy. Iran's big program is just an excuse to continue the effort to control Iran. to overthrow the regime in Tehran. Regardless of how I feel about Iranian regime, God knows that I totally slug the Iranian regime because my own family has been heard by the President Iranian regime.

I had a brother that was executed at the age of 23. I had a cousin that was also executed by the Iranian regime. But the issues that we are talking about are far larger than personal level. And the UNSTMAPE program, in my view, is just an excuse to continue the sanction regime, and the eventual goal is to alter the government in Tehran. In 2005, when Hatami administration was negotiating with the European countries,

the three Ukrainian countries, As I mentioned, it offered to put Iran to the program, which at that time was totally limited under a strict control and inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And let me also mention that even the officials of International Atomic Energy Agency, from Mohamed Albaradi at that time to the Rafael D.C. at present, have acknowledged so many times that the inspection regime, for Iran nuclear program is the most strict inspection regime in the history of international atomic energy.

And yes, they always claim about Iran trying to make nuclear bomb. We know in November of 2006, 17 intelligence agency of the United States released an international estimate saying that if Iran had a nuclear program, it stopped it. in 2003. Now, the significance of 2003 should not be under estimate. If Iran had such a program and it stopped in 2003, we should ask or say, why in 2002? Is that true that in 2003, U.S. forces were Iraq, 165,000s of the mean you are? So if Iran had an nuclear program and if it was because he wanted to confront the

West or Israel or U.S. allies, one would think that with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in border in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran and leader would accelerate their effort to make a nuclear bomb rather than put a stop to the nuclear program. The fact of the matter is Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon program, which was discovered in 1991. Before that, it had chemical and biological weapon program that the West had helped it to develop and use it against Iranian troops, Iranian people, and even its own citizens. So Iranian leaders were concerned about a threat to Iran national security by Saddam Hussein

regime. After Saddam Hussein regime was overturned, there was no reason to continue that program. And therefore, they stopped it. Now, the national estimate of 2006 said that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon program. This was confirmed in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Just a month ago, two months ago, Bill Burns, the director of CIA said, we have no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. So these are all excuses, you know, blowing our out of proportion, a program that is at least

so far has remained totally peaceful. Why? Because they want, as you said, they want to keep the framework to continue sanction in Iran. Year after the JCPOA was signed by Iran in July of 2015, and the President Obama and his administration promised that they would lift all sanctions. From July 2015 to January of 2017, when President Obama left office, the U.S. had not lived all of its sanctions against Iran. There was great resistance within U.S. bureaucracy in order to do that.

Iran was supposed to receive about $55 billion of its assets frozen in Ukraine and Asian bank. And as John Kerry said, for the end of Obama acquisition, Iran had received only a few billion. So even on that part, even when Iran signed an agreement and delivered its obligation, everybody knows that Iran had delivered on its part. It closed the nuclear facility in your home in photo. It basically removed the heavy water reactor in Iraq. It putting a storage a lot of centrifuges that Iran had built and reduced the number from something of 19,000 to 5,300 and all other things.

And it voluntarily agreed to the inspection regime as stipulated by additional protocol of nuclear non-proliferation agreement. because Iran had signed to carry out additional for the book, but the additional signing of it had not been ratified by Iranian parliament. So legally, Iran didn't have an obligation according to international standards and rules to actually carry it up. But Iran, on a volunteer basis, agreed to carry it up and that helped the agency to go into Iran on short-noticed.

and inspect anything they want. So that, as you said, is only an excuse to continue sanctioning Europe. Now, let me mention this, that in these, all of these, in these sanctions all of these, Israel has played a very important role. It is Israel lobby and Israel propaganda that has prepared the environment for continuing sanctions. Both Republican and Democrats do whatever Israeli lobby wants them to do, and regarding Iran.

And therefore, they go along with anything they want, okay? There is no way of expressing it otherwise. The ultimate goal of Israel and now Saudi Arabia or U.S. allies are not just to overthrow the regime in Tehran. but to actually disintegrated into a bunch of weak, smaller countries, because they perceived Iran as a threat to their security. I contend that if we wake up tomorrow morning and Iran has a completely democratic government,

elected white people, and stopped anything that they find objection. But yes, follow its own independent national path, they would still pick in Iran because they just cannot see an independent Iran that follows its own national interests to develop its country. They just want Iran to be under Western control because Iran's strategic position, natural resources, large population, which are, beyond and dynamic and educated. It's just too big to give up. And as long as there is an independent-minded government in law, regardless of it is democratic or undemocratic,

and the present government is, of course, not democratic, as long as they are in power and they follow their own national interests, they are going to threaten Iran, they are going to impose sanctions on Iran, they are going to try to reuse or cut off Iran's commerce with outside relations, outside countries, and so on and so. Now, the second question that you asked, of course, is very significant.

As a result of these sanctions, as a result of U.S. violating its own obligation. And let us not forget that U.S. exigued from nuclear agreement with Iran by Donald Trump administration is violation of international law, because The JCPOA was supported by Resolution 2132 of United Nations Security Council. That resolution was filed and approved under Chapter 7 of United Nations Charter. Chapter 7 of United Nations Charter is for peace and security of the war. And any resolution approved under that chapter is execution, is mandatory. for all members of the United Nations, and in particular, the permanent members of United Nations Security Council.

So by exhibiting JCPOA, the nuclear agreement, the U.S. is actually violating the mandatory UN resolution. So at least from perspective of international law and UN revolution, what the U.S. has done is totally illegal. aside from any other aspects, any other illegal aspects. And let me also remember, at the height of the pandemic that we had, a year and a half ago, the US still didn't leave any sanctions. Iran had asked World Bank for a loan. The US prevented.

The US did not allow any medication to go to Iran. It didn't allow it. Okay. So this is the most important. Humane way of treating a people of the country simply because you want to pursue your agenda of pressure in the Iranian government. Now, regarding your second question, of course, there has been backlash in Iran against it. The Iran establishment has moved towards closing relationship with China and Russia. They have been saying that the West has proven that it cannot be trust.

The West has always violates its promises, and even though we deliver our obligation, they never do it. So what they have done is the country has moved to our eastern block. Iran was just accepted as a school member by the Shanghai. security agreement, which is China and Russia and other countries. Iran has signed a 25-year strategic agreement with China for a lot of cooperation economically and otherwise. Iran has close relations with Russia. And in fact, the Iranian government has set Russia with this war in Ukraine.

So these are all consequences of what the West, and in particular the United States, has done it against Iran. Now, they always say that we want Iran to have friendly relations with the West and stop peace and stuff that. But every action that they have taken has actually against that. Whenever Iranian moderates or reformers try to do something positive, they did something negative to kill. They never responded to Hattany's proposal for comprehensive discussion without all the issue. They never responded to his proposal for dialogue of civilization. They never delivered completely under obligation after the JCPOA was agreed. And they imposed even harsher sanctions than Obama did during the Trump and Mike Panko.

I would say Mike Ponto at this, because he was the one who was making all the decisions regarding Iran. So, yes, that has had strategic consequences because Iran is now moving towards the eastern block, and in particular, China and Russia. This doesn't mean that in Iran, everybody agrees with it, but we have to take that into consideration that the most important reason that this is happening is what the United States and the Allies have done. against them. So they are pushing Iran towards eastern blocks, closer alliance to China, Russia, and countries in that region. And that's all the result of sanctions and hostility that they have demonstrated against Iran. So I know my co-host, Adnan, has to leave right now. He has another meeting to go to. So Adnan, we have one question left, which I will ask. But Adnan, can you first tell the listeners how they can find you on Twitter and your other podcast?

And then I'll ask the final question to the professor as we close out. Sure. And apologies. It's such an important and amazing conversation to hear your erudite understanding and analysis of this very important topic. People who want to follow me can follow me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. and also listen to my other podcast, the M-A-J-L-I-S, where we talk about the Middle East, Islamic World,

Muslim-diasporic experience in Europe and North America and topics like that. And in fact, actually, perhaps we should have Professor Sahimi on at some point on the muddilis to talk about his many interesting research interests. So thank you very much. And we'll talk again. Thank you, very much. and I really enjoyed it, and I appreciate you having me in this very important work.

Absolutely. And Adnan, I do hope that you bring the professor on the muddha. So I'll see you soon, Adnan. And, Professor, I do have one final question for you, something that we talked about. Before we hit play and given the current situation that we're seeing right now, and I should mention, we are recording this on the 6th of October 2022, for those of you who are listening later, we're going to rush this episode out to people. Usually there's a little bit bigger gap in between when we record and when it comes out. In this case, it'll only be about a week because of the timeliness of the episode, as well as the fact that October is Islamic History Month, and this is part of our Islamic History Month celebration.

The final question that we have is that right now, we have large-scale protests going on in Iran, which I am sure that people are seeing a lot of. And I, you know, probably more than they would if it was in a country that the United States was friendly with. It's always worth thinking about how much protests in various countries are portrayed within the media of the West, depending on the relation of that country to the United States. Protests happen in countries all around the world. But we only ever tend to see the protests that are happening in countries that are strategic, you know, enemies, not allies in any case, of the United States. and then we see those endlessly in Western media. We're thinking about that, but that's not where the question is going. We have these protests that are going on.

So perhaps very briefly, you can just let the listeners know what these protests are in case they have not seen any Western media lately. And try to connect these to the sanctions, because I do think that there is a very strong connection to the sanctions regime that has been in place on Iran and the current protests that are taking place, even if that connection may not be very blatantly obvious on the surface level, even if the media in the West and the government of the United States would deny that there is any correlation between the sanctions regime that's in place on Iran

and the protests that are taking place. I think it's fairly obvious that there is a pretty strong connection here. So if you could tease that out, that'll be our final question for this episode. Of course. First of all, let me say that a protests in Iran at least the cause of it are totally legitimate people have legitimate demands people have legitimate concern and the sad death of a young woman Mahsa Amini just gave her an excuse to come out and protest but the deeper rules

root of protest is in Iran's economic and political conditions. The economic conditions in Iran has been caused by three factors. And I've mentioned this many, many times in my audience. One is mismanagement of the economy. The second one is deep corruption, economic corruption. And the third, and in my view, the most important factor are the sanctions. Even consider any country in this world that there is no mismanagement and there is no corruption. But tell that world that you cannot have normal commerce with the rest of the world.

You cannot export what you produce and you cannot import what you need. And let's see that that country can actually survive or can actually manage its economy. It is impossible. So the sanctions have played a very important role in deteriorating economic plight of Iranian people, particularly the middle class, who has lost a lot of its buying power because of the sanctions. And I emphasize, sanction is not the only factor, but it is the most important factor. So, these demonstrations that started after death of Maxa, I mean, the young 22-year-old woman, has its roots in economic condition and therefore in the sanctions.

The sanctions are playing an important role here, a very important role. If Donald Trump had not exceeded JCPOA in 2018, And if these sanctions had not been reimposed on Iran, Iran would have been in a completely different situation, at least economy. The first couple of years after signing the ACPOA, Iran witnessed an economic growth of close to 7 or 8%. Economy was growing. The young people were getting hopeful that they can do better. in an environment where there is no sanction. A lot of startups started in Iran

and things were looking very hopeful for Iranian people, particularly the young people. But the sanctions were imposed. All those jobs that have been created as a result of lifting some of the sanctions were destroyed. And hopes were lost. When you couple that

with mismanagement and deep corruption within the Iranian state, then you can see why Iranian people are so unhappy. And of course, there are always political and social restrictions and repression, such as, for example, this morality police that arrested the young Mahasinin and she died in detention. So when you add all of these, then you can see where people come from. and where and how these protests are leaked with Sanjian. The other thing is the following that we have to remember. In Iran, the engine for profits and reform, whether economic or political, has always been the middle class. The middle class in Iran is under huge stress, and the middle class is only thinking about its story.

rival. If the middle class can feel relatively secure about its economic flight, then they can start raising the voice for political freedom, social freedom, and so on. So by imposing sanctions on Iran and hurting deeply the middle class in Iran and of course Portugal in Iran, the West is actually preventing democratization of Iran. Because without the middle class and its alliance with the lower class, the poor people, there would never be a movement for democracy and democratization. Therefore, by lifting the sanctions and helping Iranian middle class and improving Iran economy, Iran will actually have a better chance of reaching a democratic political system that Iran and people deserve.

Iran meets all the prerequisites for having a democratic state. But foreign threats, external threats, an economic sanctions, coupled with the type of regime that we have in Iran as preventable. So, yes, these two are closely linked, and we can already separate the legitimate demonstrations and concerns of Iranian people from the issue of sanctions that has been imposed on Iran all this years. Tremendous. So again, listeners, our guest was Professor Mohamed Sahimi, Professor at USC, Analyst of Iran, an author of the chapter in Sanctions and Swar that we were discussing today, a century of economic black. mail sanctions and war against Iran. I have to thank you profusely, Professor. I really enjoyed the conversation. Learned a lot, both from your chapter as well as the conversation that we just had. So I deeply am grateful for you coming on the show and sharing your knowledge with both

us, Adnan, and myself, as well as the listeners of the show. So thank you very much. Is there anything that you want to direct the listeners to keep up with you or your work, anything other than this chapter that you want them to look into? Support Iranian people but oppose sanctions and threat of military action against Iran. In the absence of sanctions and military threats for military intervention Iran, Iranian people are perfectly capable of addressing their own questions, getting rid of the present system, and setting up a democratic state. Leave Iranian alone and they will take care of their own affair.

But as long as there is sanctions and military threat in Iran, not only Iran will not move in that election, but also there will be an even more backlash against the Western powers, the United States, and hostility between two people. Tremendous. Listeners, I highly recommend checking out this chapter as well as all of sanctions this war. You can follow, Adnan told you how you can follow him on Twitter and find his other podcast. I'll briefly tell you that everybody should check out Brett's work, our other co-host who is not here today, Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. You can find everything he does by going to Revolutionary Left Radio.com. Again, highly recommended, really fabulous materials for political education.

As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995-H-H-U-C-1-995. You can follow Gorilla History on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A- underscore pod. You can help support the show monetarily, keep us up and running because there are platform fees and things like that, which are very annoying. But the more money that we take in, the more that we can expand what we're doing

and help bring more political education to the public by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you do get some bonus goodies if you're able to donate monetarily to the show. And the last note is that we have a newsletter where we round up the latest work that each of us have been doing as well as give reading and listening recommendations from the hosts and former guests of the show for you to check out again for political education purposes. That's completely free and you can find it at substack. I think guerrilla history.substack.com.

G-U-R-R-I-L-A history.substack.com. Subscribe. You can get the newsletter right in your email inbox. So on that note, then, listeners, solidarity. Thank you.